A Darker Place Read online

  Accolades for Laurie R. King’s

  A DARKER PLACE

  “What a pleasure it was, to begin 1999 by reading such a terrific book. The many fans of Laurie R. King’s two series… will not regret that she takes us in a different direction and to a ‘Darker Place.’… a real page-turner.”

  —The Drood Review of Mystery

  “King always writes well, and her stories sweep along with an inexorable force that comes from a power greater than mere skillful plotting…. A Darker Place is a fine study of sympathy and how it clouds our judgement about integrity.”

  —The Boston Globe

  “King is an original and skilled writing talent, and Waverly is one of the more fascinating new protagonists to come along.”

  —The Plain Dealer, Cleveland

  “Murky, complex, deeply disturbing and aptly titled… highly original.”

  —The Denver Post

  “King brings to the schizophrenic nature of undercover work an astute understanding… horrifying. Anne is an intriguing character, afflicted with memory and loss (her relationship with her FBI handler is worth a book in itself). And the delicate maneuvers that get her into the heart of the targeted community even as she teases out its secrets carry their own fascination.”

  —Houston Chronicle

  “Provocative… fascinating… the climax of the novel is stunning.”

  —The Providence Sunday Journal

  “King applies her renegade talents to a suspenseful tale in which a woman penetrates the treacherous realm of religious cults…. [Ana Wakefield] is a complicated and enigmatic heroine who perfectly fits the task of illuminating the shadowy world of religious cults.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Absorbing… King smoothly weaves fascinating facts into a suspenseful narrative without ever losing sight of her characters’ flawed humanity.”

  —The Orlando Sentinel

  “King, whose Sherlock Holmes pastiches make it clear that she never takes up a familiar form without making it her own, produces an undercover thriller notable for its intensity, its psychological nuance, and its avoidance of the most obvious action-movie cliches of the genre.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “King has deservedly received the Edgar and Creasy awards for her thoughtful, intelligent, innovative, imaginative mysteries. Her latest—a suspenseful and provocative psychological thriller—is another winner.”

  —Booklist

  “King’s intelligent, richly descriptive prose provides the intricate detail of a procedural as well as artfully rendering all the emotional nuances of some fresh and compelling characters.”

  —Mostly Murder

  “A dark but compelling journey.”

  —The Seattle Times

  Praise for

  LAURIE R. KING

  “One of the most original talents to emerge in the ’90s.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  A Grave Talent

  Winner of the Edgar and Creasey Awards for Best First Crime Novel

  “If there is a new P. D. James lurking in this stack of books, I would put my money on Laurie R. King, whose A Grave Talent kept me reading deep into the night.”

  —The Boston Globe

  “An amazing first novel with intelligence, intrigue, and intricacy… This work exhibits strong psychological undertones, compelling urgency, and dramatic action.”

  —Library Journal

  With Child

  “Warm characterizations… searching insights… This detective has a mind that is always on the move.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  To Play the Fool

  “Beautifully written, with clearly defined and engaging characters.”

  —The Boston Globe

  A Monstrous Regiment of Women

  “As audacious as it is entertaining and moving.”

  —Chicago Tribune

  A Letter of Mary

  “A lively adventure in the very best of intellectual company.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  “The great marvel of King’s series is that she’s managed to preserve the integrity of Holmes’s character and yet somehow conjure up a woman astute, edgy, and compelling enough to be the partner of his mind as well as his heart…. Superb.”

  —The Washington Post Book World

  The Moor

  “Erudite, fascinating… by all odds the most successful recreation of the famous inhabitant of 221B Baker Street ever attempted.”

  —Houston Chronicle

  Mystery Novels by Laurie R. King

  Mary Russell Novels

  LOCKED ROOMS

  THE GAME

  JUSTICE HALL

  THE BEEKEEPER’S APPRENTICE

  A MONSTROUS REGIMENT OF WOMEN

  A LETTER OF MARY

  THE MOOR

  O JERUSALEM

  Kate Martinelli Novels

  THE ART OF DETECTION

  A GRAVE TALENT

  TO PLAY THE FOOL

  WITH CHILD

  NIGHT WORK

  TOUCHSTONE

  KEEPING WATCH

  A DARKER PLACE

  and

  FOLLY

  Look for the newest

  Mary Russell mystery

  THE LANGUAGE OF BEES

  Available from Bantam Books

  This one is for

  Ken and Susan Orrett,

  with love

  With thanks to Jane-Marie Harrison

  and Paul Harrison, Bronwen Buckley,

  Jack from Freedom Independent Service,

  Alverda Orlando, and Mark Jacobs

  from Intertec Publishing.

  And particular gratitude for the clever hands

  and eyes of Ken Orrett and Nathanael King,

  who brought to life the vision of Anne

  Waverly and Jason Delgado.

  Section headings are taken from The

  Compound of Alchymie by Sir George Ripley,

  collected in Theatrum Chemicum Brittanicum

  by Elias Ashmole in 1652. Some of the

  archaic spelling has been modernized by the

  current author.

  Section definitions are from Webster’s Ninth

  New Collegiate Dictionary.

  1.

  PRAEPARATIO

  prepare (vb) the action or

  process of making something

  ready for use or of getting

  ready for some

  occasion, test, or duty.

  O Power, O Wisdom, O Goodness inexplicable;

  Support me, Teach me, and be my Governor,

  That never my living be to thee despicable…

  Grant well that I may my intent fulfill.

  CHAPTER 1

  In this country, we have the right to religious freedom. The nation was given its form by men and women who came here to escape religious persecution. When their descendents joined together in independence to frame a constitution, they recognized the right to freedom of religion as the very backbone of the nation; take it away, define just what a religion is permitted to look like and how the people may worship, and the entire basis of constitutional government is threatened. Argue as we might with Satanists or witches, followers of disagreeable mullahs or believers in the efficacy of comets to conceal alien spacecraft, from the beginning it has been made clear that, so long as the doctrine involved does not interfere with the country’s legal system, a religious community has the right to define its own beliefs: In this country, heresy is not a concern of governmental agencies. Madness may even, at times, be a relative definition; after all, two thousand years ago the Roman government and the Jewish authorities judged a middle-aged rabbi to be criminally insane.

  Still, laws must
be obeyed, and the dance of what may and what may not be allowed keeps the courts very busy and law enforcement agencies torn between the need to intervene in a community that is behaving in an unlawful manner and the need to preserve the rights of individuals to act out their beliefs in any way short of the unlawful. For example, a community has the right to treat its children as adults when it comes to matters of worship and the determination of authority; it does not have the right to violate the state’s child labor laws or treat minors as adults in matters of sexuality.

  In investigating the legality of a community, the key element is information, accurately obtained and accurately interpreted. We have all seen the tragedies that occur when law enforcement personnel simply do not share a common language with a group of believers; the only choice in that situation is

  From the notes of Professor Anne Waverly

  The woman at the focal point of the tiered rows of red and blue seats in the lecture hall did not at first glance seem the type to hold the attention of two hundred and fifty undergraduates at the slump time of three in the afternoon. She was small and her hair was going gray, and her figure, though slim, was long past the litheness of youth. Her voice was quiet and deliberate, which in another speaker would have lulled the back rows to sleep, and the subject of her lecture was more cerebral than kept the average twenty-year-old on the edge of his chair.

  The number of sleepers was few, however, and the percentage of spines inclined forward over the tiny writing surfaces attached to the chairs was high. There was an intensity in her that proved contagious, a vivid urgency in her voice and her body that overcame her undistinguished appearance and the torpor of the unseasonably early warmth of the day, transforming her limp into the stately pace of a sage and the wooden cane she leaned on into the staff of a prophetess.

  In the eyes of her undergraduates, at any rate.

  “What the hell is she talking about?” whispered the woman standing high up at the back of the hall, speaking to the man at her side. The two were not undergraduates; even if their age had not disqualified them, her skirt and blazer and his gray suit made them stand out in the denim-clad crowd.

  The man gestured for her to be quiet, but it was too late; they had been noticed. A nearby girl glanced over her shoulder at them, then openly stared, and turned to nudge the boy next to her. The woman saw the girl’s mouth form the word “narcs,” and then she felt her temporary partner’s hand on her elbow, pulling her out the door and out of the lecture hall. Professor Anne Waverly’s voice followed them, saying, “In fourth-century Israel this concept of a personal experience of God came together with the political—” before her words were cut off by the doors, and then the police officer and the FBI agent were back out in the watery sunlight.

  In truth, neither was a narcotics officer, although both had worked narcotics cases in the past. Glen McCarthy made for a bench just outside the building and dropped into it. Birdsong came, and voices of students walking past; in the distance the freeway growled to itself.

  “Did you understand what she was talking about?” Gillian Farmer asked idly, examining the bench closely before she committed the back of her skirt to it.

  “Merkabah mysticism as one of the bases for early Christian heresies,” Glen answered absently.

  She shot him a dubious glance and settled onto the edge of the bench.

  “And what is mer-whatever mysticism?” she asked, although she was less interested in the question than in the underlying one of how he came by his easy familiarity with the subject of Professor Anne Waverly’s arcane lecture. She listened with half an ear as he explained about the Jewish idea of the merkabah, or chariot, mystical experience, the “lifting up” of the devotee to the divine presence. The scattering of early flowers and one lethargic bee held more of her attention than his words, and he either saw this or had little to say on the subject, because he kept the lecture brief.

  After a moment’s silence, the bee stumbled off and the subject Gillian really wanted to talk about worked its way to the surface.

  “This whole thing has got to be unconventional, at least,” she said finally.

  “I suppose it looks that way.”

  The mildness of his answer irritated her. “You don’t think that hauling a middle-aged professor of religion out of her ivory tower and into the field to investigate a cult is a little unusual?”

  “I wouldn’t use the word ‘cult’ in her hearing if I were you,” Glen suggested. “Not unless you’re interested in a twenty-minute lecture on the difference between cult, sect, and new religious movement.”

  Gillian Farmer was not to be diverted. “It still sounds like something out of an Indiana Jones movie, not at all like a setup the FBI would come within a mile of.”

  “The bureau has changed since the days of J. Edgar. Now we do whatever works.”

  “And you think this will work?”

  “It has three times before.”

  “And, as I understand it, once it didn’t. People died.”

  “We were too late there—the final stages were already in motion before Anne could work her way in. I don’t think even she can still feel much guilt about that one.”

  “Why on earth does she do it?” Gillian asked after a while. “Undercover work has got to be the most nerve-racking job in the world, and she’s not even a cop.”

  But the man from the FBI was not yet ready to answer that question.

  Seven minutes later, the double doors burst open and the first students tumbled out into the spring air, heading for the coffeehouse. After a pause, they were followed by the main body of participants, walking more thoughtfully and talking among themselves. When this larger group began to thin out, Glen got to his feet and turned to face the hall, pausing to run his palms over his hair and straighten his necktie. This was the first sign of nerves Gillian had seen in him, and it surprised her; since they had met ten days before, she had found McCarthy more idiosyncratic than the caricature of the FBI man, but every bit as cold and competent as the most stiff-necked of them.

  Agent and police detective walked back through the double glass doors and down the hallway to the big lecture hall, where they again took up positions on the flat walkway that circled the top tier of seats. Gillian was seething with impatience; she did not at all like the feeling of being kept in the dark. McCarthy had his hands in his pockets, his feet set apart and his head drooping as he gazed down the length of the hall at Anne Waverly, who was now discussing papers, projects, and reading material with the six or eight remaining students.

  She put off noticing the intruders for as long as she could—until, in fact, one of the students touched her arm and leaned forward to speak into her ear. She stood very still for three long seconds, then with great deliberation pulled off her reading glasses and slowly raised her eyes to the two figures on the high ground at the back of her lecture hall.

  Her expression did not change, but even from on high Gillian Farmer could feel the impact their presence had on her. When the woman bent her head again and slid the glasses back onto her nose, she still looked strong, but she seemed older, somewhat flattened, and her uncharacteristic distraction from the words of her students was obvious. The young men and women knew that something was up and grew taut with a curiosity that verged on alarm; however, when eventually she wished them a good week, they could only disperse, reluctantly, and make their slow and suspicious way up the stairs and past the two intruders.

  One boy, however, found retreat more than he could bear. He scowled at Glen as he went by, and then turned back to the podium to ask loudly, “Do you want some help, Dr. W?” His stance even more than his words made it obvious that he was offering an assistance considerably more physical than merely carrying her books, but McCarthy was careful not to smile, and Gillian Farmer merely glanced at the boy.

  The woman he had called “Dr. W” did smile. “Thank you, Josh, I’ll be fine.”

  Their protests unvoiced, the students left, with a furtiv
e rush of low conversation that was cut off when the glass doors shut behind them. The lecturer turned her back on McCarthy and Farmer, gathering up her papers from the table and pushing them into an old leather briefcase. She buckled the case, took it up in her right hand and the cane in her left, and started for the steps, her very posture vibrating with displeasure.

  Each stair was deep enough for two short footsteps, which was how she took them, leading with her right, bringing her left foot up, and taking another step with her right foot. She seemed to depend on the cane more for balance than sheer support, Gillian decided while watching the professor’s slow approach. And it was the knee, she thought, rather than the hip, that was weak. Other than that, she was in good shape for a woman in her mid-forties, perhaps a vigorous fifty. Her back was straight, her graying hair worn as loose as that of her students, curling softly down on her shoulders. Her clothing, though, was far from a student’s uniform of jeans and T-shirt. She was dressed in the sort of professional clothing a woman wears who does not care for dresses: khaki trousers, sturdy shoes that were almost boots, a light green linen shirt that seemed remarkably free of creases for the tail end of a day, and a dark green blazer shot through with blue threads. The clothes seemed a great deal more formal than those of the other adult women on the campus, Gillian thought, and found herself wondering about the professor’s status in the tenure stakes.

  At the top of the stairs, the woman neither paused nor looked up, but merely said to the carpeting, “Come to my office, please.”

  They followed obediently, submitting to the hard looks of the handful of students who hovered in the distance to be quite sure their professor did not need assistance. She ignored them, as did McCarthy. Farmer tried to avoid looking as though she was escorting a prisoner, with limited success.